Preview: Lakers vs. Houston Rockets, Game 2 Of Western Conference Semifinals

The Lakers play the Houston Rockets in Game 2 of their Western Conference semifinals series on Sunday.
The Rockets won Game 1, 112-97, overwhelming the Lakers with their speed.
Lakers coach Frank Vogel said Saturday that there wasn't much his team could've done to prepare for that.
"You can show it to them all you want on tape," Vogel said. "You can talk about it. The answers were given to the test going into it. But again, even though you know something's coming, when it happens with speed in an athletic setting like this, sometimes it just takes a little while to get used to that speed. Hopefully, we got a taste of it, [and] we'll be better in Game 2."
The Rockets, who have the top-rated defense in the postseason, were scrappy in Game 1, forcing the Lakers to commit 17 turnovers, which they scored 27 points off of.
James Harden was sent to the free-throw line 11 times in the first half, finishing with 36 points.
And in the fourth quarter, the Lakers struggled to get anything going offensively as the Rockets went on a 16-3 run to turn a six-point lead into a 10-point advantage.
"I think we can be sharper, for sure," Vogel said. "I don't think that we didn't play hard. I felt we competed and played hard. Sometimes, you can lose focus when the ball's not going in the basket, and I think it was an element of that. But we've played against this style. A lot of teams in the NBA play five-out basketball. We know what we have to do to get the job done. We just have to do it better."
